1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a broadcast program reservation apparatus, a reservation method thereof, and a program thereof that reserves recording of a broadcast program such as a television broadcast program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Television broadcast program recording apparatuses that have been released in recent years have a function of receiving EPG (Electronic Program Guide) information from a broadcasting station and automatically records a program that matches with conditions designated by users as he/she pleases based on the EPG information. Conditions that the user freely designates include for example program title, keyword, genre, and broadcasting time zone. However, there is a problem in the related art that if all programs that match the designated conditions are recorded, reruns of the same program may also be recorded, resulting in wasting a limited record area and a program that matches the conditions and that will be broadcast in the same time zone as the reruns may be failed to be recorded.
So far, a rerun detection apparatus that detects whether or not a broadcast program is a rerun program has been proposed (refer to for example Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-333481, paragraph “0006”, hereinafter, this document is referred to as the patent document 1). The patent document 1 discloses a technology that allows a program to be reserve-recorded regardless of whether or not the EPG information contains a rerun identifier for the program. In the apparatus of the patent document 1, if a program is failed to be reserve-recorded due to any cause, when the title of the program failed to be reserve-recorded matches the title of a program contained in EPG information updated later, the matched program title contained in the updated EPG information is determined to be the title of a rerun of the broadcast program which has been failed to be reserve-recorded.
In addition, a digital broadcast receiving apparatus that can determine whether or not a program that has not been correctly reserve-recorded will be rerun in the future with a series descriptor contained in a digital broadcast (refer to for example Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-354354, paragraph “0007”, hereinafter, this document is referred to as the patent document 2) has been proposed. This series descriptor contains an identifier called “label” that represents the number of reruns of a program. Thus, the apparatus of the patent document 2 can determine whether or not a program will be rerun.